Chrome 13 Goes Beta

Google adds zombie Google Web Accelerator

One of the big feature additions Google is trumpeting in Chrome 13 is
Instant Pages. Thanks to the magic of speculative pre-rendering and
Google's unmatched ability to know what you want to do next before you
do, Chrome can now silently load the pages you're most likely to click
on from an existing page.

Chrome 13 goes beta

Right now, you can test the magic on google.com -- where Chrome will pre-render the top few results for your query text. They're the ones you're probably going to click on, after all. For a look at how things work, check out the official video embed below.

You'd be forgiven for thinking that this all sounds a bit familiar. Anyone remember Google Web Accelerator? Just like Instant Pages, GWA tried to predict where a user would click -- and prepared for those clicks by quietly caching web content in the background. While you can no longer download the browser enhancement from Google itself (the pin was pulled in 2008), it's still floating around cyberspace, ready to allow even your woefully out-of-date Firefox or Internet Explorer to pre-render pages just like Chrome 13 does!